


Hockey Robot™

by orphan_account



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Autistic Jack, Character Study, M/M, i have no idea what to put in here, so like jack is totally autistic and im making a character study out of him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-08-16
Packaged: 2018-07-19 03:49:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7343617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Change will come. The world will continue to spin. Flowers will grow, and Jack will stay the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Descent Into What One May Call Madness

**Author's Note:**

> I'm autistic btw. This is an insight into what I think Jack has to deal with as an autistic person, and a lot of it is drawn from my experiences. Write what you know, y'know? 
> 
> There's a lack of autistic Jack fics in this fandom so I'm here to rectify that! 
> 
> This first chapter is only him as a young kid so you won't see anything from SMH until later.
> 
> warning for a meltdown

Jack is lying on the sofa. The sofa is soft and a nice white, completely devoid of color. His hands are playing with a hockey puck, and the noise in his head isn’t nearly as loud as it usually is. He feels something next to normal if he knew what that was. Their living room is big, just like everything in the house, but it isn’t big enough. He’s too big, he’s seen the tabloids when his mama takes him shopping and the annoying talk shows hosts on TV. People always say he’s too ugly to be Bob and Alicia Zimmermann’s child. 

He doesn’t really know what to do. He’s always playing hockey, and tries to eat healthily, and whenever he eats junk food he feels gross. It’s as if he’s done something wrong. Jack can’t stand the leftover baby fat either, not just the magazines that seem to be so disappointed Jack didn’t turn out model material. It doesn’t really make sense to him, why people who don’t even know him care about how he looks for some reason, but he assumes it’s because his parents are so famous. 

He doesn’t want people to think he doesn’t care about his body, or what other people think of him, or anything else that won’t stop buzzing in his mind. There are strings, Jack thinks, different colors and each one is a different problem or insecurity and they wrap around each other so tightly that his mind ends up being a menagerie of cobwebs.

“He’s only 11,” his parents will say to each other when they see him having panic attacks. They will wonder why their son ended up like this, and what they had done wrong. They will always end up being afraid for him, for their odd son who lives in a world unlike the one in his head.

\--

Jack is 7 years old and basically failing all of his classes except for History. English doesn’t make sense, and it’s so boring. Math has so many contradictory rules and ways to do things, and he always feels like he’s swimming in a completely different language. Science is just completely uninteresting, besides astronomy. PE is usually alright, except for when the gym teacher yells at him for somehow not doing what he was told, even though her instructions weren’t specific or made sense at all? Art and music are both the same: interesting in theory, mind-numbingly confusing in practice.

History is good, though. It’s concrete and there are some things that don’t make sense but they never stay on a certain subject long enough for him to get too confused, and his mama takes him to the local library when there’s a certain era that’s really interesting- lately it’s been ancient civilizations, like the Aztec Empire or ancient Athens.

“Mama, I don’t understand. What’s wrong with my grades?” Jack’s been called into the parent-teacher conference for the first time. He was sitting on the floor and rather occupied with remembering the tune to one of the songs papa put on yesterday.

“Well honey, besides gym-”

“Physical education mama.” Jack interrupts, earning him a glare from Mr. Roberts, his small, pale teacher. His glasses are sliding down and he looks a bit like a bug, which makes Jack want to laugh. He doesn’t, though, because he knows Mr. Roberts would ask why are you laughing Jack and Jack would be honest because honesty is Very Good and Mr. Roberts would say that’s not very nice Jack and he would have to say that he was sorry even though he wasn’t trying to be mean. People are weird.

He realizes that while he was thinking, mama and Mr. Roberts must have said something. “I was lost in space, sorry.”

“All we want to know was why you aren’t doing well.” Mr. Roberts says, looking at him with a smile.

“Well, everything is boring. Or too hard. Or both. Like math! Math has too many rules and none of them add up with each other and they don’t make sense!” Jack replies and looks at his hands.

“Jack, if you continue to do this, no more hockey. You need to have good grades in school too.”

“But mama! What do my grades have to do with hockey?”

“It’s important to focus on things that aren’t interesting along with the things you like. Think of it as a treat for doing your work, okay?”

“Fine.” Jack glares at the floor, rocking back and forth to calm himself. He hates when these things happen. This is not how things are supposed to go. He was supposed to go to the parent-teacher conference and sit on the floor and think about fun things, not how he has to deal with stupid unimportant things if he wants to have fun.

“Jack, don’t raise your voice.” His mama is frowning at him. It doesn’t give him a good feeling.

“I didn’t!” 

“Yes, you did. You’re doing it right now.” Mama and Mr. Roberts look at each other. “Why don’t you go back outside, Jack?”

He gets up and walks out. They’re whispering behind him, but Jack doesn’t care enough to listen. No hockey, which isn’t good. Everything is bad. Jack doesn’t understand he never understands why doesn’t anybody explain anything to him? Why can’t he breathe why is everything too bright why is there someone screaming why won’t you stop touching me stop touching me it’s too bright this isn’t the way it’s supposed to go. Everything hurts and he doesn’t want anyone touching him why is there someone still screaming why why why why wh y w h y-

Silence.  
-

Jack is 7 years old and has just learned what it’s like to have a meltdown in public.

Jack is 7 years and shaking and terrified. He can’t stop rocking back and forth. His throat is sore from screaming himself hoarse, and even if his throat wasn’t sore he wouldn’t be able to speak.

“Honey, honey, what was that?” Mama is sitting next to him, hands hovering near but too afraid to touch him. He’d be too afraid to touch him if he were her, too. Afraid for, or of him, he doesn’t know. All he knows is that he’s afraid of himself.

Jack shakes his head, grabbing mama’s phone out of her hands. He writes I cant speak in the notes app, and hands it back. He doesn’t let himself touch her hands.

They stay like that for ten minutes: Jack rocking back and forth silently, Mama and Mr. Roberts exchanging glances next to him.

“I’m sorry.” Jack whispers, finally, voice hoarse. “I don’t know what that was.”

Five more minutes, and then Mr. Roberts opens his mouth.

 

“I think that this would be, well, not a good time to stop but rather an alright time to finish our conference. Before you go, I’d also look into an autism diagnosis. For Jack, not you, Mrs. Zimmermann. But it’s very likely your son may be autistic, and I recommend you look into that- there’s a variety of resources, really. I have a specific doctor, Dr. Alainz- I’ve told parents to go to her before and she’s wonderful with autistic kids, really! Anyway, I hope you have a good night.” Mr. Roberts rambles, then ducks back in. He walks out with some papers. “Here are a few pamphlets, by the way! Goodbye.”

“Goodnight, Mr. Roberts.” The two of them walk out, Jack holding his mama’s hand.

“Huh. Autism, then? We’ll talk about it with Papa, yeah? Yeah.”


	2. Chapter 2

Hello! Apologies to those expecting an update, as I've left you guys without one for so long!

The fact of the matter is that I will be continuing this, but in a series. So look out for the series itself.

Again, I'm very sorry to have kept you all waiting, I just feel like it would be best in a series more than anything else.

<3

**Author's Note:**

> check me out on tumblr @transboy-ernst or twitter @historicalgays where I will inevitably end up talking about Check Please, treatment of autistic people in media, and even more!


End file.
